Fling – Joseph Murray

I’ve had Escape (The Piña Colada Song) stuck in my head for days – and not just because it’s a banger. It’s also basically the premise of Fling, the new novel by Irish content producer and screenwriter Joseph Murray. The wonderful folks at Pan Macmillan AU were kind enough to send me a copy for review.

This contemporary rom-com follows a couple, Tara and Colin, through their seven-year-itch. It was love at first sight when they met, but infertility struggles and IVF failures have soured things between them. Both find themselves drawn towards a controversial new app, called Fling – an anonymous Tinder-style hook-up app for married people looking to stray.

The plot is interesting, and the characters well balanced, but there is a lot of exposition going on – not just in the early chapters of Fling, but throughout. I felt like the characters’ feelings were over-explained most of the time; Murray really spoon feeds the reader every thought that goes through their head. Some aspects (the goddamn night-we-met-and-he-was-riding-a-motorbike thing) were repeated over and over again to the point of annoyance.

That said, I still quite enjoyed Fling for what it was: a sexy fun romantic comedy, one that went a bit over-the-top at times, but still did exactly what it said on the tin. It would be the perfect pick for fans of Marian Keyes and other Irish romance writers.

Buy Fling on Booktopia here. (affiliate link)